The Tiberian vocalization (or Tiberian pointing, Tiberian niqqud; Hebrew: ניקוד טַבְרָנִי) is a system of diacritics devised by the Masoretes to add to the consonantal Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible; this system soon became used to vocalize other texts as well. The Tiberian vocalization marks vowels, stress, and makes finer distinctions of consonant quality and length, and also serves as punctuation. While the Tiberian system was devised for Tiberian Hebrew, it has become the dominant system for vocalizing all Jewish varieties of Hebrew, having long since eclipsed the Babylonian and Palestinian systems.
The sin dot distinguishes between the two values of ש. A dagesh indicates a consonant is geminate or unspirantized, while a raphe indicates spirantization. The mappiq indicates that ה is consonantal rather than silent in syllable-coda position.
The seven cardinal vowel qualities of Tiberian Hebrew are indicated straightforwardly by distinct diacritics:
The diacritics qubutz and shuruq both represent /u/, but shuruq is used when the text uses full spelling (with waw as a mater lectionis). Each of these vowel phonemes could be allophonically lengthened; occasionally this length is marked with metheg. (In this function metheg also can indirectly indicate when a following shva is vocal.)
Philip Seymour Hoffman (born July 23, 1967) is an American actor and director. Hoffman began acting in television in 1991, and the following year started to appear in films. He gradually gained recognition for his supporting work in a series of notable films, including Scent of a Woman (1992), Twister (1996), Boogie Nights (1997), The Big Lebowski (1998), Magnolia (1999), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Almost Famous (2000), 25th Hour (2002), Cold Mountain (2003), and Mission: Impossible III (2006).
In 2005, Hoffman played the title role in the biographical film Capote (2005), for which he won multiple acting awards including an Academy Award for Best Actor. He received another two Academy Award nominations for his supporting work in Charlie Wilson's War (2007) and Doubt (2008). Other critically acclaimed films in recent years have included Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007), The Savages (2007) and Synecdoche, New York (2008). In 2010, Hoffman made his feature film directorial debut with Jack Goes Boating.